Before I Sleep
by BookkeeperThe
Summary: The Doctor's about ready to call it a day. Jack has other ideas. [EoT fix-it, the final installment in the Shelter 'verse. Follows on Damage Control et al.]
1. Chapter 1

**Warnings: some fairly explicit description of injuries, but nothing terribly gory.**

 **Notes: I know, I know, I promised this like. A year ago. Maybe more. This is still very much a work in project and updates will be slower than usual. I'm dealing with a lot of health issues right now, but I miss writing, and I miss Doctor Who, and I miss you guys, and I hope posting the first chapter will kick me into gear.**

 **That being said, this is definitely the last installment in the Shelter series. It's been great. It's helped me grow as a person and writer. Thank you so much for sticking with me to the end.**

 **As always, enjoy, and let me know what you think.**

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"Doctor!"

The cry tore itself from Jack's throat as he burst through the doors. It took him all of three seconds to take in the twin chambers, with an old man trapped in one and the Doctor halfway into the other, and realize what was going on. It took him only slightly longer to sprint across the room, yank the stunned Doctor out of the glass case, and slam his hand down on the button. Through the light and the pain he heard the Doctor's anguished shout, and then there was darkness.

When he gasped back to life, the first thing he registered was Ianto – Ianto's hands holding him steady, Ianto's voice murmuring reassurances, Ianto's legs beneath his head – but the first thing he saw was the Doctor. The Doctor, alive, upright, but bruised and bleeding, watching Jack with hollow eyes.

Jack allowed Ianto to help him to his feet.

"Jack." The Doctor's voice was flat, like he couldn't quite comprehend Jack's presence, or his own.

"Doctor."

"Holy _fucking_ shit." All eyes turned to Owen, who was staring at the Doctor with shock and horror verging on admiration, medical scanner in hand. "Did you _jump_ through the fucking _ceiling?_ "

The Doctor glanced upwards absently.

"Guess I did, yeah."

"Are you _insane_?" Owen sputtered.

"Guess I am, yeah." The Doctor made a choking sound, and Jack braced himself for tears – but they never came. Instead, the Doctor began to laugh, high and thin and horrible, and every hair on the back of Jack's neck stood on end.

"Doctor." Jack stepped forward and grasped his shoulders, fiercely ignoring all the mauve alerts going off in his brain. "Doctor!"

He gave him a small shake. A grunt of pain found its way into the Doctor's mirthless giggling, and his knees buckled. Jack stumbled with a curse.

"We need the TARDIS," he snapped over his shoulder.

"Yes sir," said Ianto, and immediately turned away to question the old man whom Gwen was attempting to mollify.

Jack sank to the ground with his arms full of hysterical Time Lord, struggling not to panic himself. The Doctor had never, ever lost it like this. Tears, yes. Incoherent babbling, practically comatose withdrawal, even the occasional flash of irrational fury, but never this terrifying, desperate laughter.

 _Shit, Doctor. What has that bastard done to you this time?_

"We have to snap him out of it," said Owen, crouching beside him.

Jack ignored him, choosing not to waste breath on pointing out the obviousness of that statement. Owen rolled his eyes.

"Fine then, I'll do it."

He drew back his hand.

"Don't you fucking dare," Jack growled, catching his wrist with bruising force.

"You have a better idea?" Owen demanded.

Jack shot a glare at him and turned back to the Doctor.

"Doc. Doc, c'mon." He gripped the Doctor's chin, forced him to meet his eyes. " _Doctor._ " The single word was an order and a plea, and something about it broke through. The Doctor stopped laughing, though his breathing was still ragged and his eyes still hazy.

"Wha –?" he questioned weakly. "What –?"

"It's okay, Doctor," Jack soothed. "I'm here. You're safe. We're going to get you back to the TARDIS, alright?"

"In the stables," Ianto said lowly, appearing at his side. Jack nodded his thanks as he began to heft the Doctor to his feet.

"Careful," Owen warned, helping on the Doctor's other side. "He's got a fractured elbow and a couple cracked ribs."

It was a testament to how far gone the Doctor was that he didn't object to being spoken of as if he couldn't hear them. Maybe he couldn't. His eyes were foggy and distant, his lips moving silently, forming words that Jack doubted he would understand even if they were audible. He did his best to take some of his own weight as they moved him towards the door, but it seemed more automatic than anything.

"'Scuse me!"

Jack gritted his teeth. It was the old man – the one the Doctor had been about to sacrifice himself to save. Jack wished that he could deduce something about the man's character from that, but the Doctor would sacrifice himself for just about anyone, including total strangers and total bastards.

"'Scuse me, sir – Jack, is it? I's just, the Doctor, he did something –"

"He does a lot of things," Jack ground out. _Pretty much everything, except taking care of himself._

"No, but he did it to the TARDIS. Made it vanish. Said it was out of time, so the Master couldn't get it."

Jack stopped in his tracks, eliciting an oath from Owen and a pained gasp from the Doctor. Jack ignored the first, muttered a (probably unheard) apology for the second, and twisted his head around to address the old man.

"Out of time?" he repeated. "As in, out of synch with time?"

"Yeah, that's it," said the old man, his hands waving excitedly in front of him. "Did it with that screwdriver of his."

"Dammit," Jack growled. There was no way they'd be able to reverse that without the Doctor – who was barely upright, his breath coming in shallow gasps. Jack wasn't sure he'd still be conscious by the time they got him to the TARDIS, let alone coherent. "You never make things easy, do you, Doc?" he sighed, forcing their little troop back into motion.

"I don't understand," said the old man, trailing after them. "What's wrong with him? He was fine. Jumped through that ceiling and everything and he was still walking around, saving the day . . ."

"Adrenaline," Owen grunted. "Now it's wearing off; everything's catching up with him."

"He's gone," said the Doctor abruptly. His tone was startlingly clear and conversational, though a quick glance confirmed that his eyes were still unfocused and hazy. He continued to speak, jarringly matter-of-fact, as if he were talking about the weather. "He's gone, and they're gone, and it's gone. The Ood forgot to mention that bit."

"I know, Doc," said Jack, because he did. Oh, not what the Ood were or what was gone besides the Master, but he knew loss. He knew pain. And he knew the Doctor. "Just need you to keep it together for a couple more minutes so we can get you into the TARDIS, alright?"

"Mm," the Doctor acknowledged, and then came to an abrupt halt which had to be painful.

Jack stumbled slightly with a curse. The Doctor's eyes were fixed on what appeared to be thin air in front of them.

"Sonic," he mumbled, and reached for his pocket, only to flinch with a hiss of pain as he tried to bend his injured elbow.

"I'll get it," said Jack, and let go of the Doctor with one hand to reach across his chest and into his inner pocket. The action, actually fall more practical and – well, clothed – than much of the contact he'd had with the Doctor in the past, felt strangely intimate, almost obscene in this modern palace with so many eyes watching.

The Doctor accepted the sonic with a trembling hand. The ethereal blue light cast strange shadows in the gathering dusk for an instant, and then the TARDIS was there, as solid as ever.

The Doctor slumped wearily against the door, eyes sliding shut. He stayed that way, breathing shallowly, as Jack extracted his key from his pocket and opened the door.

"Doc." Jack pressed a hand to the small of his back, layers of fabric over pale skin and breakable bones. "C'mon. Let's get you to the med bay. We'll get you fixed up."

The Doctor made a sound in the back of his throat which may have been a mirthless chuckle and may have been a dry sob, but he opened his eyes, reaching out to grip Jack's arm with bruising forced as he tried to steady himself. Jack wrapped an arm around his thin waist and helped him inside, hoping he wasn't doing any more damage to his ribs.

The TARDIS hummed its concern as they stepped inside, and when they made it to the other side of the console room the med bay was there, not even separated by hallways as it usually was.

The others were still trailing behind them.

"Ianto."

"Yes sir." Ianto materialized at his side.

"Take him to the kitchen," Jack ordered lowly, indicating the old man with a tilt of his head. "Don't let him leave until I get there."

"Yes sir."

Ianto lead the old man off with a few polite words, and Gwen and Toshiko followed.

"Jack." The Doctor's voice was startlingly strong, his grip on Jack's arm tightening even further. "Don't – I know you're scared, but don't take it out on him. He's a good man. He's –" The Doctor cut himself off with a gasp of pain, eyes rolling back in his head, and dropped.


	2. Chapter 2

In which Ianto tries to explain, Toshiko tries to understand, and Gwen tries to explore.

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"Alright, that's it," Owen snapped, jumping forward to help catch the Doctor as he fell. "Help me get him on the table and then get out. You need to figure out what happened, and I need to make sure he hasn't done himself any permanent damage."

Jack looked about ready to protest, but just gave a frustrated shake of his head and lifted the Doctor onto the exam table.

"Fine," he said through gritted teeth once the Doctor was settled. "But you call me if _anything_ happens, got it?"

"Ay-ay, Captain," Owen agreed with a mock salute.

Jack retreated reluctantly, and Owen let out his breath in a sigh.

"Well then," he said to the Doctor's still form. "Looks like it's just you and me. And the good ship TARDIS, I suppose."

The room hummed almost inaudibly in agreement, and Owen twitched. Fucking creepy ship. Still, it probably knew more about what they were doing here than he did.

"Look," he said aloud. "You're in my head, right? So I'd know if he'd fucked himself up too badly. It's just a couple cracked ribs and a sprain or two. He'll sort himself out."

The room was silent.

"I'll take that as a yes, then. So. Hydration, probably some nutrients – I'm guessing those are around here somewhere? With some easy-to-read labels for us poor monolingual humans?"

Again, there was no response, but Owen found his eyes drawn to a cabinet above his head which he hadn't noticed before. He opened it up and found – yep, liquid nutrients and saline, in a fairly intuitive if not exactly familiar IV set-up.

He set it up, sat down, and stared at the Doctor.

There were still tear tracks on his face.

"You're one melodramatic fuck, you know that?"

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"Wait, so, who's the Master?"

"Well, he's like the Doctor, isn't he? A Time Lord and what not."

Ianto sighed. Wilfred Mott was doing his best, but that wasn't what Gwen was asking, not really. 'Time Lord,' to everyone in the room, was nearly synonymous with the Doctor. How could they begin to understand another one; another person; the same in – what ways? What parts of the Doctor were alien, and what parts were damage, and what parts were just him?

But Ianto had heard things, from Jack, and from Torchwood One, and even from the Doctor, in his less aware moments. He didn't know the Master – he didn't think anyone besides the Doctor would ever be able to. But he knew the answer Gwen needed. He cleared his throat, and all eyes turned to him.

"Imagine, for a moment, that the Doctor is the hero in a folktale. Unassailably good, always wise and brave and selfless, never making any morally questionable decisions. Imagine the villain of that story. Now remember what the Doctor actually is, and imagine the villain of _that_ story."

There was a beat while Gwen and Tosh processed, and then –

"Oh. God."

"Yes," Ianto agreed, and went back to stirring his tea. This, he felt, was the primary issue here: this was not a tragedy. Not like they were used to catching the Doctor on the tail end of; lost lovers and lost worlds and impossible decisions. This was something living and vicious and inexorably a part of him; something which wielded a three-edged knife and left wounds that never closed, let alone healed.

Ianto had heard Jack talk in his sleep, in the moments before he woke up screaming; heard him beg and plead and sob. He knew, without a doubt, that the Master was a monster. But he had heard the Doctor talk in his sleep, too, and he thought he knew what kind of monster he was.

He thought maybe he was a beautiful one.

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Toshiko excused herself from the kitchen shortly after Jack swept in with a tense jaw and a terse demand for explanations. The door slid shut with a soft _shick_ , and any sound of the perilous conversation beyond it was instantly silenced. She was reaching out to touch the wall in a gesture of gratitude before she even realized what she was doing, and the ship hummed as if in response.

Toshiko startled. She stared around the corridor with new eyes, taking in the organic – _living_ – architecture and recalling half-forgotten snippets of conversation. _"Maybe someday I'll introduce you two properly,"_ the Doctor had said, and she had thought it was a figure of speech, but the way the TARDIS sounded – the way it felt –

"Hello," she said, softly, and listened carefully for an answering change in pitch. And she did hear it, a gentle shift in the ambient noise, but she felt – she _felt_ –

It wasn't words. It wasn't emotions, either. It was nothing at all like what had happened in her head when she wore the pendent; visceral and not hers but so so human. It was something _other_ , something nearly unrecognizable, but she did recognize it, or at least a part of it.

"You remember me," she said, awe creeping into her chest and her voice, and the utterly alien response was one of affirmation, almost, but something else, something – "You know me because he knows me."

And _there_ was the affirmation.

She let her hand fall away, and shivered.

"He's no more human than you are, really."

There was no response, but then, she wasn't really looking for one. Not from the TARDIS, anyway.

There was a door across the way. The medbay, she knew, and didn't question where the knowledge came from. The Doctor. Owen.

She pushed it open.

The Doctor was laid out on the exam table, pale and thin and rigged up with some sort of futuristic IV. He was still and breathing steadily, asleep or unconscious. He could have almost been human. But there was a chill in the air, and the monitor beside him kept time with his double heartbeats. He belonged here, under these unearthly lights, within this ship that thought and felt in ways Toshiko would never understand.

Owen, with his rumpled clothes and unshaven face, looked like some arse who had wandered in off the street. Which wasn't too far off the mark, really.

"Holding up alright?" she asked him, and he scowled.

"'Course I am. I'm not the stupid sod who tossed himself through a bloody glass ceiling."

"Is he going to be okay?" she questioned, pulling up a chair.

Owen snorted.

"Who the fuck knows."

They sat in silence, listening to the four beat rhythm of the heart monitor.

"Do you think we can ever understand him at all?" she asked at last.

Owen's response was fast and sure, solid like sinew and bone.

"I don't think we ever understand anyone."

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Gwen ducked out of the kitchen, deciding Toshiko had the right idea when Wilfred began recounting the whole sorry mess a second time, this time underscored by Jack's restless pacing and snappish questions. The corridor was empty, the door to the med bay mysteriously absent. Jack had mentioned that the ship had a tendency to shift things around, either at the Doctor's will or its own.

Gwen shrugged to herself, and set off, arbitrarily, to the right.

The TARDIS was . . . not what she had been expecting. She had known that it was bigger on the inside, of course, but she had still pictured the interior as – well – a ship. A galley and a toilet and some sleeping quarters, maybe a rec room and an observation deck. Alien and advanced, sure, but still a ship, still economical and practical.

This was neither of those things. The kitchen, with its mismatched furniture and chipped tea set, had reminded her strongly of her Gran's house on the coast. She tried doors as she passed them and found multiple bedrooms, each one spacious and styled to suit a particular occupant, as well as an Olympic-sized pool, a library whose shelves stretched on as far as she could see, and what looked like an arcade straight out of 1985.

She amused herself for a moment imagining that all the Doctor had been doing on those days he disappeared into the TARDIS was trying to beat his own high score at Pac-Man. And she moved on.

Victorian bedroom, undecorated bedroom, futuristic . . . washroom (maybe), a definite washroom, and – hold on.

She backtracked, pushed open the door again, and stepped inside. Or outside, rather. It was a . . . garden, she supposed, though that didn't seem like quite the right word for the masses of vegetation that rose up before her. She couldn't see more than a few feet past the edge of the clearing near the door, but it gave the impression that it went on for ages, and when she glanced up there didn't seem to be any ceiling at all, but only an open lilac sky. The air hung heavy and humid like a real jungle, and she thought she could even hear the sound of small animals just out of sight.

She took another step forward.

 _Crackle. Click._

" _That's fine, just keep it there."_

Gwen jumped about a foot in the air, reaching instinctually for her gun before she realized that, A, she had left it in the kitchen in accordance with the Doctor's strict No Weapons policy as enforced by Jack, and, B, it was just a recorded message. A holographic recorded message, but then, this was a spaceship.

The hologram, a tall man in a leather jacket with close-cropped hair that didn't do his craggy features any favors, cleared his throat.

" _Due to a failure of safety protocols, this garden can be hazardous to unarmored bipeds. And yes, that includes humans. I strongly recommend that you stay behind the protective force field if you like your skin where it is."_

" _Also,"_ another voice cut in, and Gwen started again. That was _Jack's_ voice, Jack's handsome image materializing from the left of the hologram to shove his way into frame. _"Due to a lack of basic safety skills, the Doctor is not to be allowed near any cooking utensils, except in the unlikely event of you_ _ **wanting**_ _everyone in the general vicinity to get dismembered."_

The Doctor. That was the Doctor, scowling and crossing his arms, and that was Jack – Jack when he was young, not just the young face that he still had and maybe always would have, but a young grin, young eyes – but nowhere near as young as the voice that interjected, bright and feminine with a Cockney accent.

" _Or blown up."_

" _Or blown up,"_ holo-Jack agreed, and the holo-Doctor's scowl deepened.

" _You still got all your limbs, don't you, Captain?"_

" _Yeah, but I think my eyebrows are still singed. My face is my fortune, y'know."_

" _Got that right,"_ the young woman off-screen confirmed appreciatively.

" _Are we going to make these sodding things or not?"_ the Doctor demanded. _"You're the ones who wanted warnings in the gardens. Serves you right if you got your daft arses eaten by carnivorous vegetation."_

" _Aaaannnd . . ._ _ **cut**_ _,"_ said the young woman, and the images flickered off, Jack's laughter cut off mid-note.

Despite the heat of the garden, Gwen shivered.

She supposed she should have guessed that a place like this would be haunted.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes: sorry for the wait, and the short chapter; things have been kind of rough. But the good news is the next chapter is much longer and 99% written already, so it won't be long for that one. In the meantime, enjoy!**

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Jack sat with his fingers digging into his scalp, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes until sickly colors mottled his vision.

Wilfred Mott. A good man, like the Doctor said. An honest, peaceful, surprisingly insightful man who spent his nights searching the sky for new lights. An ordinary human, with just a touch of extraordinary in all the right places. Custom-made for the Doctor to save. Custom-made for the Doctor to die for.

Jack wondered for a moment whether Wilfred was just a little _too_ perfect, but discarded the thought as unnecessarily paranoid. Probably a good section of the population would fit a similar description. That was what made them, well, ordinary. Just because Jack seemed to find himself routinely surrounded by the worst of the worst didn't mean there weren't decent people out there.

. . . or decent people in here, as the case may be, he reminded himself. Ianto was making casual conversation with Wilfred, deftly keeping the old man's attention off of Jack; Owen was still watching over the Doctor; Gwen and Toshiko had disappeared to who knew where, but they were two of the very elite group of people whom Jack would trust to wander the TARDIS unattended.

And anyway. The Doctor would sacrifice himself for just about anyone.

Jack pressed his hands harder into his eyes until his head throbbed with spider-webbing hues.

He was still sitting like that when the alarms went off.

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Gwen was still standing in the clearing when the noise began.

It wasn't the shrill scream of a fire alarm or the Hub's sensors in high alert; it was low and clanging like the warning bells of some ancient city. But it still sent the same signal to the base of her spine, and she was off running before she even processed the thought. She sprinted through the twisting corridors, past the library, the pool, the countless bedrooms, and finally, finally, to a familiar door –

– she burst into the medbay and into chaos. Machines were blaring, Owen was yelling, Jack's face was white as a sheet – the Doctor lay still and silent in the midst of it and for a moment Gwen thought _Oh god no_ –

But then she heard what Owen was yelling.

"Goddamn, Jack, he's not fucking dead! I said _slow_ , not stopping. His hearts are steady; _he's_ steady; so would you just back the fuck off for one goddamn second?"

Owen pushed his way back to the Doctor's side, flicking off alarms as he went. The machines fell silent besides the slow – but yes – steady beats of the heart monitor.

"What's this, then?"

All eyes turned to Wilfred Mott, who, almost forgotten in the uproar, was pointing at the only screen that wasn't displaying something soft, slow, or sluggish.

"It's his brain activity," Owen said dismissively, already turning back to his patient. "Almost like some kind of hibernation state . . ." he muttered to himself.

"Doesn't look like hibernation to me," said Tosh, eyes still on the brain activity, and Gwen had to agree. The screen was alight with spiking, speeding lines, flashing by almost too quickly to register.

"Hibernation isn't –" Owen began irritably, but stopped, staring. ". . . anything at all like that," he concluded, and jerked the monitor closer to himself. "What the fuck."

"What does it mean?" Jack asked through gritted teeth.

"He's awake. I mean, obviously the rest of him isn't, but his brain is. It's like he's . . . retreating, but he's still in there."

"Alright," said Jack, nodding as if he was coming to his own conclusion. "Alright. So I'm going in after him."

There was dead silence. Then Ianto, very steadily, asked,

"How?"

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Owen said.

"Is that even possible?" said Toshiko.

"I've done it before," Jack said firmly, his resolve visibly hardening. "In training, and a couple times since. I'm sure between in here and the archives we've got the equipment around somewhere. Me and him both have enough psychic ability, we should be able to communicate no problem."

"Ever done it with an alien?" Gwen questioned. "And what if he doesn't want to communicate with you?"

"What do you mean, 'if'?" Owen said, rolling his eyes. "I'd say a self-induced coma is a pretty clear signal."

"I think we understand each other well enough; if he doesn't want to he'll just kick me out; and we don't know it's self-induced. Though thanks _so_ much for your valuable input, Owen."

Ianto coughed. Owen glared. Gwen stood between them, watching the Doctor's chest rise and fall ever so slowly.

"Jack," said Tosh. "He's really, really not human."

"I know," Jack said, the heaviness of the situation weighing down his attempt at a light tone. "I don't know if I am, either."

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Ianto watched Jack dig determinedly through the third junk room of the night. He watched him toss alien this and futuristic that over his shoulder and he thought, _I know you love him. I don't blame you. But please, please. I love you._

He said,

"Jack."

And he felt all the words he would never say pile up in the back of his throat.

Jack looked up, his own upspoken words twisting his smile, and said,

"I'll be fine, Ianto. Worst case scenario, I come to with nothing to show for it."

 _And then what?_ Ianto wanted to ask. _And then what, Jack? What lengths will you go to next? What are you willing to give up? Please. I love you._

What he said was,

"I know."

Jack had something in his eyes that Ianto couldn't interpret. Jack stood, and, in an impossible short sequence of movements, was in front of him. He planted a hot, dry kiss on his lips and murmured something unintelligible into the corner of his mouth. A reassurance, maybe, or something just as meaningless.

It was only when he pulled away that Ianto saw the pair of wires in his hand.

"Found them," Jack said, and his smile was also an apology.

Ianto watched him go, and found that, despite himself, he had already forgiven him.


	4. Chapter 4

In which Jack and the Doctor have a conversation, in a manner of speaking.

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The wires were in place, connecting them temple to temple. His team stood around him, varying levels of pale and disapproving. The gas was thick and white and sickly-sweet, the best anesthesia in the world. One breath and he'd be out between one blink and the next. Jack lay back, slipped the mask over his face, and inhaled. And . . .

Blink.

Jack's first thought was,

 _Gamestation._

His next thought wasn't a thought at all, but a bolt of pure, electric panic, followed quickly by,

 _Nononononono not here not again not here never again_ –

He wavered, caught himself, breathed.

 _Not real._

His next thought, he said aloud.

"Fuck you, Doctor."

A screen flickered to life across the dark and shattered ruins of the Gamestation's control room. It was a panel next to the exit, still sealed in this mindscape, glowing a sickly green. Text rolled across it in ever increasing lines, and Jack stepped forward for a better look.

" _Jack_ _,"_ it said, in a serif'ed font straight out of a 90s movie about hackers. _"_ _Jack Jack Jack Jack Jack Jack Jack Jack Jack Jack Jack Jack . . ._ _"_

"Yes, what?" Jack snapped, more than a little irritated already. Trust the Doctor to hit him with a healthy dose of trauma and some B-level horror right of the bat. Bastard. His heels were really dug in deep this time. Good thing Jack had a stubbornness to match.

The screen stopped. It displayed an odd, twisting symbol – a loading sign, Jack realized, a rolled his eyes – and then a new message. A query, in fact.

" _Do you understand?_ "

Beneath it were two simple options, " _YES_ " and " _NO_ ".

"Understand what?" Jack asked. The NO option highlighted as if he had pressed it, and the loading sign reappeared. It sat there for longer this time, moving in ways that made Jack's eyes water, but he didn't look away. Whatever fucking game the Doctor was playing, he would see it through to the end. He said he'd always be there, and he would, whether the Doctor liked it or not.

A new question appeared.

" _Do you want to understand?_ "

Jack didn't have to think about for a second.

"Yes."

Blink.

It was . . . beautiful. Waves of red grass spilling across rolling hills, dotted with silver-leaved trees – it was Gallifrey, Jack realized with a jolt. And beneath one of the trees, not too far off, sat a small figure.

Jack approached cautiously. It was a humanoid boy, about fourteen, tall and slim and dark-haired. He looked up from his book as Jack drew closer.

". . . Theta?" Jack tried.

The boy stared at him for a moment, then shook his head silently and pointed up to the tree. There was a rustle of shimmering leaves, and Theta dropped into view, short and blond and blue-eyed. He grinned, bright and hot and brimming with unspeakable potential, and he looked like a young universe.

"This isn't real," Jack said, and Theta's smile faltered.

"What?"

"Of course it's real," said the other boy, rising to his feet and taking Theta's hand. "As real as you or me or any dead thing." His dark eyes glinted in the light of the twin suns and, quite suddenly, Jack knew who he was.

"Shut up." Jack's voice sounded strange and harsh to his own ears. His eyes were fixed on their young hands, intertwined so naturally, but all he could see was the Master laughing, taunting, dying; the Doctor begging, sobbing, breaking –

"Hey!"

Theta was between them, shoving him back, stopping the advance he hadn't even realized he was making.

"Back off!" Theta snapped, sharp and sparking. "He's just a kid! Do you understand?" This was Theta, but Theta weighed down with all the Doctor's pain, all the knowledge of what was to come. There were tears in his eyes, a crack in his voice. "We're both just kids, we didn't know, we couldn't have known; some things are set in stone, but not us, never us; we could have been anything!"

The Master – no. Koschei, the pale and thin boy with sorrow in his eyes and a defiant set in his jaw, wrapped a protective arm around Theta's shoulders.

"We could have been _everything._ "

Blink.

Jack started. The grass was gone; the trees were gone; the boys were long, long gone. In their place was a deserted study, lit by a single, dim light bulb – the kind that was outdated even in the 21st century, that gave off yellow light and would burn you if you weren't careful.

"Hello?" Jack tried. His voice, which should have echoed in the empty space, seemed to die as soon as it crossed his lips, swallowed up by the shadows. Small clouds of dust rose around his feet as he stepped forward. He didn't recognize any of the languages on the books that lined the walls. "Doctor?"

There was a whir and a click from behind him. He spun to see an old television, the picture grainy and dull as it flickered to life. A computer simulation of galaxies rolled across the screen, and with the voice of a bored old professor, the narrator said,

" _. . . in the early 21_ _st_ _century, human scientists began to recognize that previously observed forms of energy and matter did not account for the physical phenomena present in the universe. They theorized that there must be a great amount of matter, and an even greater amount of energy which they were incapable of observing with their current technology and knowledge. They called the energy 'Dark Energy.'_

" _This was, of course, merely a place-holder, as humans of this era could not hope to comprehend the true nature of this force that they knew only through its effects. Despite these limitations, they were able to deduce that the very structure of the universe, and in fact the existence of life as they knew it, was shaped by Dark Energy from the beginning of time,"_

The room was unravelling, the screen expanding, and Jack couldn't tear his eyes away. Every pixel was a star, burning and collapsing and burning again, and every star was a neuron, sparking and dying and sparking again, and with no voice at all, the universe said,

Do you understand?

Blink.

It was a graveyard. Rows upon rows of headstones stretching out in every direction as far as Jack could see, and on the one directly in front of him, a familiar verse.

 _One fine day in the middle of the night,_

 _Two dead boys got up to fight._

 _Back to back they faced each other,_

 _Drew their swords and shot each other._

It was all it said. No name, no dates. Just an eerie children's rhyme, oddly clear despite the gloom.

Somewhere, a clock began to chime. Jack counted nine strokes. As the last note faded he felt a shiver run up his spine, and the graves shimmered and shifted. Figures began to emerge, silvery and translucent – ghosts, just ghosts. But one of them was looking at him.

The Master smiled, wide and bright and empty.

"Hello, Jack."

His voice sounded distant and echoing, unreal. Maybe that was all that kept Jack from losing it. Maybe not.

"What the hell," he said, and if his voice shook, he told himself it was only with rage. "What the _fuck_ is going on here?"

The Master's smile widened beyond what should have been possible, predatory, dangerous. Jack's hand went automatically to his hip, but of course, there was nothing there. His projection, the Doctor's mind. No weapons allowed. He might have panicked right about then, except –

"Leave him be."

It was a familiar voice, familiar like his father's embrace and the Time Agency's protocols and a pink tongue caught between white teeth as an impossibly young girl smiled at him. It sounded like loss. It sounded like home.

"He's just a ghost, lad," said the Doctor, his Northern burr gentling as Jack's eyes sought his, a bright silver echo of their old piercing blue. "He can't hurt you."

"Oh, bugger off," the Master sneered. "You missed me and you know it,"

The Doctor, leather clad and translucent and sitting cross-legged on his gravestone, ignored him.

"He's a bit melodramatic, this one," he told Jack, gesturing at the mindscape as a whole. "Heavy-handed. But he wants you to understand. If any human could, it would be you. He's got that much right."

Jack shook his head helplessly, despair rising in his throat.

"What? What am I supposed to understand? The Master's dead, last of your kind, I get it –"

"No," the Doctor cut him off harshly, on his feet, in his face, all jagged edges and solid stone, just like he was, way back when; wounded and hurting but not like now, not a shattered mess of dashed hopes and fallen grace because back then he had never had hopes to begin with – "This isn't about last of our kind; this isn't about the world burning under our feet. _Think_ , lad."

Jack's eyes darted from the Doctor, to the gravestone – the single gravestone, doublewide, bearing a verse of unfathomable poignancy, to the quicksilver eyes which glittered dangerously at him over the Doctor's shoulder.

"I think –" Jack swallowed something painful and unnamable. "I understand."

The Doctor's face softened into something which was almost a smile.

"Good lad."

Blink.

"Took you long enough."

The Doctor – the current Doctor, thin and pinstriped and tragic around the edges – was sitting against the wall on the far side of the stark white room, fiddling with something small and glinting. It disappeared and reappeared between his long, clever fingers, there and then gone again. There and then gone.

"I was getting rather obvious, towards the end there," the Doctor continued lightly, left arm draped casually over his bent knee, right continuing absently in his slight-of-hand. There and then gone. There and then gone. "I suppose you understand now?"

"Doc." Jack's voice sounded hollow even to his own ears, and the Doctor's hand stilled.

"Jack?" The Doctor looked at him, finally. His eyes were deep and pained and tinged with desperation. "You do understand, don't you?"

"You loved him," Jack said, and he heard like it came from someone else's mouth, but he tasted every sour word on his tongue.

The Doctor laughed mirthlessly.

"Of course I loved him. For better or for worse. More often the latter, to be perfectly honest. But do you _understand_?"

Jack thought of Ianto, trust and loyalty and youth, and of John, teeth and betrayal and sex. And he thought of the Doctor, cold lips and cold fingers, two bloody hands and two broken hearts that loved him back as best they could.

The small, glinting object began to move again, more slowly this time. It danced across the Doctor's knuckles, catching the light, and Jack could finally see what it was.

It was a bullet. There and then gone again.

There.

And then –

Gone.

"Yes," he said, and it tasted like poison, tasted like his own undoing, but he would swallow all the cyanide in the universe if it meant the Doctor lived. "Yes, Doctor. I understand."

Jack crossed the room and slid down beside his mentor, his destroyer, the man who would never be his lover but would always be his love. He wrapped an arm around his waist, and pressed a chaste kiss to his temple. Here, in this unreality, he almost felt warm.

Blink.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes: another short chapter, I'm afraid, but! I have the next (and last) one about half written already, so it shouldn't be so long for that one, unless RL continues to interfere. In any case, enjoy, and let me know what you think.**

 **.**

 **.**

 **.**

In which Owen give orders, Ianto takes a moment, and Jack buys breakfast.

.

.

.

The thing about the Doctor – the thing that Gwen seemed to forget and that Tosh seemed to have suddenly realized – was that he really, really wasn't human. Owen liked to think he didn't forget that, but was still a bit startling when, without warning, the Doctor sat up on the exam table, grinned brightly, and said,

"Morning!"

So yeah, alright, Owen fell out his chair. A _little._

"Alright?" the Doctor asked, reaching down to help him up with one hand and unsticking the nodes from his temple with the other. Jack was pushing himself upright, rubbing at his eyes groggily.

"How long's it been?" he asked.

"Couple hours," said Owen. "Nearly dawn out, if my watch still works in here. Jesus, would you sit back down? You're not going anywhere."

This last was for the Doctor, who was already rising from the table.

"Aren't I?" the Doctor questioned, with a passable imitation of cheerful curiosity, eyebrows creeping upward.

"Doctor's orders," Owen said firmly. "Anyone who's been passed out for hours has to take at least five minutes to calm the fuck down before running off again."

"I'm not _running off_ ," the Doctor protested, but sat back down anyway.

There was the soft clearing of a throat from by the door.

"Ianto," Jack said, and started to stand, but Owen's pointed glare kept him in place.

"Jack," Ianto said, stepping forward, and Owen rolled his eyes as they shared he was he felt was an unnecessarily dramatic kiss. The Doctor caught his eye and gave him a crooked smile.

"I'm not kissing you," Owen told him, and the Doctor grinned widely.

Ianto cleared his throat again.

"Mr. Mott has retired to what appears to be a guest room," he informed the Doctor. "I assume it's not an imposition."

"Oh, of course not," said the Doctor with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Good old Wilf. Never met a finer man in my life."

"Yeah, whatever," Owen cut in. "Look, I can barely make heads or tails of this goddamn equipment. You look fine to me. Are you?"

"Eh," said the Doctor, pulling a face. "I'll be a bit tender for a few days; nothing I can't handle. No serious damage."

"Right," said Owen, rolling his eyes again. "Assuming that you're not lying through your teeth –"

The Doctor made a 'who, me?' expression, which Owen decided no amount of eye-rolling would ever communicate the absurdity of.

"—and you and Jack sorted out whatever the hell was going on –"

"We did," Jack said shortly.

"Then I've got to give you a clean bill of health, I suppose. Clean enough to walk on, mind, not to eat off of. No heavy lifting or whatever."

"Understood," the Doctor agreed, tilting his head in mock deference.

Owen frowned at him. Sure, he _seemed_ fine. He always seemed fine, until he didn't. He was going to get himself killed someday, the stupid bastard.

 _And no one will even be there to see him go._

No. No. Fuck that.

"Alright there, Owen?" the Doctor asked, carefully flippant but with an underlying gentleness that made Owen's chest ache.

"Fine," he bit out. "C'mon. I don't trust you in this place, and I'm starving. We're getting breakfast."

.

.

.

Gina was working this morning. While Ianto could have done without her particular brand of customer service, she seemed to cheer Jack up, at least.

"Hey there, beautiful," Jack greeted her with a signature grin.

She ignored him.

"Would you mind turning it down a notch?" she asked – well, no, told – the Doctor. "You're giving me a goddamn migraine."

Ah, right. Empath.

"Oh, sorry," said the Doctor. "Didn't realize I was leaking."

Gina raised an eyebrow.

"That's you _leaking_?"

"He's had a bad day," Ianto explained.

The Doctor started laughing so hard he choked on his water.

"Sorry," he said, once he had finished coughing. "Blimey. That's one way of putting it."

He grinned at Ianto across the table, and Ianto was startled to find himself smiling back.

"Hate to break up the love-fest," Gina interrupted, "but I've got other tables, so unless you've got actual orders to put in . . ."

"He'll have whatever's full of protein and carbs," said Jack, jerking his head at the Doctor. "And we'll have the usual. Thanks, Gina."

Gina took their menus and departed with a roll of her eyes.

Jack's hand found Ianto's under the table. A reassurance, and this time it mattered. Jack's eyes were on the Doctor but his fingers were intertwined with Ianto's and it was okay, he was okay, they were okay. The Doctor had had a very bad day but he was here, upright, and if his smile had a bit of a fatalistic edge to it, well, at least it was something. Hope, maybe, or just the best they could hope for.

But it mattered. This, here, it mattered. Breakfast in a hole-in-the-wall dump with a rude shapeshifter for a waitress, Owen across the table picking at a splinter, the Doctor busily sorting sugar packets, Jack beside him, hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder. Tosh and Gwen and old Wilfred Mott safe in the Hub.

Owen reached over and tipped over the container of carefully sorted sugar packets.

"Oi! What was that for?"

"You're giving me bloody anxiety is what that was for; can't you sit still for one goddamn minute?"

"I'll have you know that I once sat _completely_ still for no less than twenty-nine hours."

"Yeah, and I've been to the bloody moon."

"Just because I happen to choose not to do something at the exact second you want me to –"

"You're such a fucking liar –"

Jack brought Ianto's hand up to his lips and pressed a gentle kiss to his knuckles. Ianto felt a blush rise in his cheeks. Yes. This. Right here, right now. This was what mattered.

.

.

.

Slowly, slowly, Jack's world was returning to its axis. Ianto was blushing under his touch. Owen was being intentionally difficult. Gwen was keeping an eye on their guest. Tosh was holding down the fort. And the Doctor was . . . in love with the Master.

Jack's hand tightened around Ianto's.

The Doctor was in love with the Master. Of course he was. It was obvious, in retrospect. Talk about messy breakups.

Jack snorted at the thought, and the Doctor shot him a wry smile.

"I'm getting too old for these all-nighters," Jack said, and the Doctor grinned.

"You? Never."

And the Doctor's smile was a little forced, and his face was a little pale, and his eyes were deep and pained, but his hands were steady and his tone was light. He wasn't okay and neither was Jack, really, but they'd get there.

Jack pressed another kiss to Ianto's hand.

After all, they didn't have to do it alone.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes: And here we are. The last chapter of the last story of the Shelter series. It's been a long, rough road for the Doctor and Torchwood, and for me, and for a lot of you, too. But no matter what, I really think it can be, if not okay, at least better. At the very least, survivable. We find homes, maybe where they were all along. We find friends. And when it's all we can do, we keep breathing.**

 **As always, enjoy.**

.

.

.

In which there is a departure.

.

.

.

Toshiko knew, the instant the Doctor walked through the door, that there was going to be trouble. He was bouncing on the balls of his feet, practically vibrating with restless energy.

Jack could see it too. It was obvious from the way he hovered, hands twitching as if to reach for him. It wouldn't do any good. Jack could be an immovable object but the Doctor was an unstoppable force, and he had ways to make Jack crumble.

Toshiko was a little bit in awe of that.

The Doctor's hands twitched, his eyes shifted, and she watched Jack's heart sink a moment before the Doctor said,

"Well, time I was going."

And Jack, with his mouth and his eyes and every aspect and fiber of his being, said,

"Don't you fucking dare."

And with his mouth, the Doctor said,

"Jack,"

But with a warning undertone and pleading look he said,

" _Don't try to stop me. Please."_

And Jack said, "Doc," and Gwen said, "Don't," and Owen said something she couldn't hear because she was busy watching the stars start to burn again in the Doctor's eyes and because someone was saying "Can I come with you?" and it took her a moment to realize that the someone was her.

.

.

.

Owen hadn't slept in over twenty-four hours and this probably wasn't the best time to be making decisions, but the Doctor was leaving _now_ , alone, and Owen had spent years and years in this Cardiff sewer among the lost and broken scraps of infinity and here was the real thing, shining and whole, inside a blue box and a wild smile, and he heard himself saying,

"I'm coming with you."

And someone else said,

"Can I come with you?"

And the Doctor froze with his hand on the TARDIS door, and everyone was staring at Owen, and Owen was staring at Tosh.

"What?" he said, and Tosh said,

"I –"

And the Doctor still hadn't said anything at all.

The Doctor turned, slowly, into the startled silence. Hs eyes were dark and his face was pale and when he spoke, his voice was low and serious.

"I can't promise you'll come back."

"Right," Owen agreed, and Tosh nodded wordlessly.

"If you do, you won't be the same."

"I'm counting on it," said Owen, and Tosh said,

"Good."

And Gwen was staring at him like she was rethinking her entire understanding of his character, and Ianto was nodding to himself like it was only to be expected, and Jack was looking at the two of them as if they had saved him and condemned him in a single motion. But the Doctor –

The Doctor was grinning.

The Doctor was grinning and it looked like a cliff dive, looked like the shining surface of a water so dark and deep that it held things beyond any human imaginings, looked like everything Owen was about to plunge himself into and something swooped in his stomach like falling.

He wondered if this was what courage felt like.

.

.

.

The Doctor was grinning and Jack's stomach was sinking into the floor as his heart rose into his throat. The Doctor was grinning his _come with me_ grin at Owen and Toshiko, of all people, and Jack was feeling a horrible sort of empathy with Jackie Tyler. Owen and Tosh – his people, _his_ – running off with _the Doctor_ –

Huh. It had been a while since he felt jealousy.

The Doctor caught his eye, and his grin faltered.

"Jack –" he began, an apology in his voice, but Jack surprised himself by letting out a bark of laughter.

"Don't bother, Doc," he said, waving off the unspoken words that he had heard too many times for any lifetime. Everyone was staring at him, now, but he couldn't wipe his own grin off his face. This was so goddamn typical it was hilarious. "I said you shouldn't travel alone, right? God."

He laughed again, and the Doctor gave him a crooked smile, eyes sparkling.

"That you did."

Jack stepped forward, took the Doctor's hand, and pulled him into a tight embrace. Lips beside his ear he said, softly,

"Don't forget to come home again."

When they pulled apart, a cool hand lingered in his.

It took two minutes for Gwen and Ianto to say their goodbyes, with hugs and admonitions. It took less than half that for the Doctor to usher Owen and Tosh into the TARDIS, with Owen asking where in Time and Space a person could get a stiff drink. The Doctor's gaze caught on Jack for a moment, and then he disappeared inside. The door snapped shut. The wind picked up. And then, with that old familiar groan, they were gone.

Silence reigned. Until, at last, Ianto said,

"Those three are going to be a disaster."

"They'll kill each other," Gwen agreed.

"They're going to start wars," Ianto predicted.

Jack grinned.

The Doctor had no idea what he had gotten himself into.


End file.
